הרב מרדכי

Rabbeinu Mordechai ben Hillel (c. 5010/1250–22 Av 5058/1298), known for all generations as the Mordechai after his sefer, was among the most important poskim of Ashkenaz in the generation after the baalei Tosafot. He came of the great rabbinic lines of Ashkenaz — a descendant of the Raavan and of the Raavyah — and was the foremost talmid of the Maharam of Rothenburg, learning as well under Rabbeinu Peretz of Corbeil. From 1291 he served as rav and rosh yeshiva of Nuremberg, where talmidim gathered to him from across Europe.

His sefer, HaMordechai, gathers the psak and teshuvot of the chachmei Ashkenaz — from Rabbeinu Gershom and the early rishonim through the baalei Tosafot, the Raavyah and the Ohr Zarua, to his own rebbe the Maharam — arranged on the order of the halachot of the Rif. He brings some three hundred and fifty authorities, and for many of them his sefer is today the only surviving source. Printed beside the Rif in every edition of the Shas since the earliest printings, it became one of the pillars of psak in Ashkenaz — the Rema taught it in his yeshiva and leaned on it throughout his hagahot — and it stands among the sources of the Shulchan Aruch. The work circulated in two recensions, the long “Austrian” and the abridged “Rhenish” that the printed Shas carries, with the Hagahot Mordechai preserving material from the longer text.

He died in the Rindfleisch massacres that swept the kehillot of Germany in 5058/1298, Rabbeinu Mordechai was murdered al kiddush Hashem in Nuremberg together with his wife Zelda and their five children. The sefer his talmidim completed carries his name into every beit medrash in the world. Another great rishon and talmid of the Maharam, Rabbi Meir HaKohen (author of the Hagaot Maymaniot), was a contemporary of the Mordechai, and was killed on the same day in the Rindfleisch massacres.